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Carolyn O'Neal
Author
Kingsley
In KINGSLEY, Carolyn O’Neal explores the frightening result of decades of toxins in the environment through the life of a fourteen year old boy named Kingsley Smith. Kingsley is a sweet boy, but he’s too fat to wear swim trunks and too poor to play golf. After colony collapse disorder finishes off the bees, a dangerous and mysterious pandemic emerges and attacks anyone and anything with a Y-Chromosome, both human and animal. Kingsley has more to lose than video games and the attention of the girl he loves. His mother believes millions of dollars in research can save her son, and she’ll lie, steal and worse to get it. But not everyone mourns the loss of the men. Can an unscrupulous mother and a spirited girl save the last boy on earth? Fans of dystopian fiction and eco-thrillers (The Hunger Games, The MaddAddam Trilogy) will love KINGSLEY.
Reviews
Amazon

Carolyn O’Neal’s KINGSLEY is, at its heart, an ecological horror story. The novel begins a few years in the future, when the devastating results of pollution and environmental stupidity have decimated wildlife and caused global warming and mysterious illnesses. The protagonist is 14-year-old Kingsley Smith, an overweight video game addict who’s totally crushing on BFF Amanda Sutherland. He also suffers from debilitating headaches that just might be linked to the illnesses being discovered across the planet. But why are only males impacted by these illnesses? And what could happen to the planet if only females ultimately survive?

The first part of the novel focuses on Kingsley and Amanda and their efforts to figure out what’s going on. Both of them have crazy insane mothers who are either oblivious or overbearing, and both of them had good relationships with their fathers (although neither father was a match for his wife!). The secondary characters in this novel really are a hoot – they reminded me of the kinds of characters Roald Dahl writes, perverse and over-the-top, but definitely scary. As Kingsley’s headaches intensify and the truth about the state of the world becomes clear, Kingsley and Amanda’s predicament becomes horrifyingly precarious.

But about a third of the way through the novel, things jump 40 years into the future, where the world is an even scarier place. Without males, reproduction is impossible, and most animal and insect life has vanished from the planet; this means the food supply is in dire straits. Women have resorted to cloning to have children, an expensive and intricate process that limits childbirth to the very rich. There are doctors attempting to find a “cure” for the disease that ravaged all male life on earth (called “The Collapse”), and there are doctors attempting to create new, genetically-engineered life forms that are capable of reproducing asexually. There are conflicts over whether or not any effort should be made to bring back male life forms, either through cloning or through genetic engineering – some people long for the good old days when men were rock stars and sports heroes and boyfriends and husbands, but others fear that men were the cause of the planet’s devastation and they resist any effort to resurrect them. In this “brave new world,” Kingsley (no longer a teen) plays a new and fascinating role.

This novel definitely reminds me of other novels, such as P. D. James’s CHILDREN OF MEN (where all of the planet’s women have become infertile) and Margaret Atwood’s ORYX AND CRAKE (where a geneticist attempts to create new genetically-engineered life forms). But both James and Atwood are more openly political (and more graphically violent) than O’Neal, and neither book was written with a teen audience in mind. KINGSLEY feels much more like a YA novel, with Kingsley’s perspective front and center through most of it. There is a political agenda here – selfishness and greed have driven people to destroy the ecosystem, which ultimately leaves humanity (and all life) verging on extinction. It’s a scary premise, and one that seems all too real. But since the perspective is Kingsley’s (for the most part, anyway), the politics becomes more the framework for the story than the story itself. If this is a horror story – and in many ways it definitely is – it’s not one we can easily forget once we reach the final page. The horror that envelopes Kingsley’s world is one that threatens our own. That said, there is a clear element of hope in this novel that connects it more to CHILDREN OF MEN than to the terribly dark ORYX AND CRAKE.

Bottom line, KINGSLEY is an imaginative and scary examination of a potentially devastating future told through the eyes of a young boy. If you’re considering this for a teen reader, please be advised that there is some profanity, as well as a few disturbing sexual situations. Nothing about the novel is graphically inappropriate, however, and all of the language is pretty commonly used today, even by teens. This would be a great novel to read along with your kids – I’m sure it would stimulate some real and meaningful debate.

News
04/23/2016
Celebrate Earth Day with Author Carolyn O'Neal

Celebrate Earth Day with eco-fiction writer Carolyn O'Neal. Agora Coffeehouse, 520 Caroline St, Fredericksburg, Virginia.

 8:30 am - 1 pm  

A portion of the proceeds will go to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and The Virginia Oyster Shell Recycling Program. 

03/12/2016
Dahlonega Literary Festival, Regional Writers

The Dahlonega Literary Festival is an annual celebration of books. The next festival will take place March 12-13, 2016. Situated in Historic Downtown Dahlonega, the festival continues to grow and become more and more entertaining as the years go on. We promise it will delight anyone who is a lover of books and reading.

04/29/2016
KINGSLEY at RavenCon in Williamsburg, Virginia

Author Carolyn O'Neal will be signing copies of KINGSLEY at RavenCon in Williamsburg, Virginia, Aprill 29 - May 1.  The Convention will be held at the DoubletTree Hilton, 50 Kingsmill Road, Williamsburg, Virginia,

03/16/2016
Virginia Festival of the Book - Stories We Were Meant to Write

Wed. March 16, 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Northside Library

705 Rio Road West, Charlottesville, VA 22901

Authors Eric Angevine (Hinkle Fieldhouse: Indiana’s Basketball Cathedral), Randall Crenshaw (And One Pill Makes You Small), Michelle Damiani (il Bel Centro: A Year in the Beautiful Center), and Carolyn O’Neal (Kingsley) discuss their writing.

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